Charon Surface Observations: NH Post-Encounter Phase, 1 Aug 2015- TBD |
Charon Surface Observations: NH Post-Encounter Phase, 1 Aug 2015- TBD |
Sep 25 2015, 07:16 PM
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#16
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1887 Joined: 20-November 04 From: Iowa Member No.: 110 |
new images as the LORRI site
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounte...er=downlinkDate |
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Sep 25 2015, 07:25 PM
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#17
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Member Group: Members Posts: 423 Joined: 13-November 14 From: Norway Member No.: 7310 |
Baby mountain-in-a-moat?
(notice the difference to the similar-sized crater next to it) In general, quite a lot of mountainous structures on those plains. -------------------- |
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Sep 25 2015, 08:08 PM
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#18
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 82 Joined: 13-July 15 Member No.: 7579 |
Another interesting feature of relief: small dimples. I suppose that it is an analogue of the dunes in the desert, caused not by the wind but solar irradiation conditions. Oriented to the Sun the north side evaporates and on the shady south sides condensation occurs. Thus, the instability of a flat surface develops and slowly creeping dunes to the south (when in the northern hemisphere is summer). Therefore, the perpendicular meridians orientation of formations can be observed. It looks like the similar dunes seen on Charon. Dunes caused by instability of flat surface due to instability under slanting rays of the sun. At least Charon dunes definitely can not be caused by wind. |
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Sep 25 2015, 08:56 PM
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#19
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3009 Joined: 30-October 04 Member No.: 105 |
QUOTE (Alan) new images as the LORRI site They do have the Additn'l Info as "LORRI rider on P_MPAN_1 scan observation", and there is an button to show by release date, but I don't see any _release_date_ info on the images. Have I missed something? and a reminder of my NH Charon geomorph image: https://univ.smugmug.com/New-Horizons-Missi...omorph-v1.0.png --Bill -------------------- |
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Sep 25 2015, 09:01 PM
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#20
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Member Group: Members Posts: 890 Joined: 18-November 08 Member No.: 4489 |
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Sep 25 2015, 09:07 PM
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#21
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Lord Of The Uranian Rings Group: Members Posts: 798 Joined: 18-July 05 From: Plymouth, UK Member No.: 437 |
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Sep 25 2015, 09:38 PM
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#22
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 48 Joined: 10-September 06 Member No.: 1129 |
Charon looks far less cratered than Callisto, Ceres, Mimas, Tethys, Dione, Rhea, and Iapetus (plus Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon based on lower resolution images).
Perhaps we're looking at a surface age closer to that of Ganymede, Miranda, and Ariel? |
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Sep 26 2015, 07:02 AM
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#23
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Member Group: Members Posts: 306 Joined: 4-October 14 Member No.: 7273 |
My attempt at stitching together the Charon mosaic that was uploaded on the raw website today. Tried my hand at colorizing it with the MVIC image taken on July 13. I had to warp the image to align with low resolution + Charon's rotation making that difficult, so color features should be taken with a *huge* grain of salt.
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Sep 26 2015, 08:42 AM
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#24
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Member Group: Members Posts: 819 Joined: 3-June 04 From: Brittany, France Member No.: 79 |
Really nice work Justin !
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Sep 26 2015, 04:21 PM
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#25
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Member Group: Members Posts: 423 Joined: 13-November 14 From: Norway Member No.: 7310 |
With the latest high-resolution imagery down, it really looks like there is significant topography at the north pole (there certainly is on the horizon). Using jccwrt's work above (rotated to make north up(wards)), it's tempting to interpret this part as a mountain range (perhaps encircling the entire northernmost area), entering and leaving the field of view on the right side in this image:
I also found this crater interesting, since it appeared kind of shallow - as if something had happened to its floor: And of course there is this crater (to the right), which looks completely filled in: Dome? Landslides from some of the big cliffs: (look impact-related) -------------------- |
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Sep 26 2015, 06:13 PM
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#26
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3009 Joined: 30-October 04 Member No.: 105 |
It seems that Charon has Cerean topography, especially the "flowage" and "slumpage" features.
And my take on Mordor (the Polar Feature) is that it appears to be a caldera/crater. Ref my "Pluto/Charon" and "Ceres" pages linked below. What strange little worlds. --Bill -------------------- |
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Sep 26 2015, 11:37 PM
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#27
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Member Group: Members Posts: 306 Joined: 4-October 14 Member No.: 7273 |
Really nice work Justin ! Thank you! With the latest high-resolution imagery down, it really looks like there is significant topography at the north pole (there certainly is on the horizon). Using jccwrt's work above (rotated to make north up(wards)), it's tempting to interpret this part as a mountain range (perhaps encircling the entire northernmost area), entering and leaving the field of view on the right side in this image. It could be a mountain range. My first thought was that it was another large fissure system seen edge on. Of course, at the scale of some of these, there's functionally not much difference! It is interesting that it is "walling in" some of the darker terrain around the north pole - I wonder if it's either creating a cold trap that keeps the north pole in winter darkness for a little longer. As for the infilled crater, it looks pretty old and degraded, so there's a possibility that it could just be infilled with ejecta from other impacts. That said it's on relatively flat terrain so there might have been some mare-like flow into the crater. Hopefully we'll get another hi-res image to get some context to the eastern rim of that crater. This crater (directly north of Moat Mountain) looks interesting, could be a potential terrace impact. Looks relatively young, too. Some of the ejecta is covering nearby tectonic features. |
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Sep 29 2015, 03:30 PM
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#28
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3009 Joined: 30-October 04 Member No.: 105 |
These latest Charon images, five in a montage-able series described as "LORRI rider on C_LEISA_HIRES scan" are a great improvement on the initial Charon images.
When these images hit PDS as verified and calibrated etc they should be better than these initial jpeg'd public offerings, so there is room for improvement. But with later data transfer from NH, should there be higher resolution images of this series to look forward to? And could there be other images north and south of these to give a montage of the entire hemisphere or was this one track pretty much it? Still, these images show astounding detail and amazing features on this little world. Take a look: https://univ.smugmug.com/New-Horizons-Missi...haron/i-wQNMfhT --Bill -------------------- |
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Sep 29 2015, 04:16 PM
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#29
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Member Group: Members Posts: 306 Joined: 4-October 14 Member No.: 7273 |
According to machi's table of planned LORRI observations it appears there was a scan across Charon at 170 m/px resolution. As for the C_LEISA_HIRES observation, there were apparently 12 shots planned in this sequence. I'm not sure if that means that this will cover the entire globe of Charon or if there were just multiple images taken to increase SNR like some of the LORRI observations of Pluto. Considering that this is a ride-along observation, I'd guess the latter.
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Sep 29 2015, 04:20 PM
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#30
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1887 Joined: 20-November 04 From: Iowa Member No.: 110 |
There was a mosaic taken at 175,000 km which should cover the entire hemisphere at a resolution 0.87km/px ,similar to the 16 frame mosaic of Pluto posted a couple of weeks ago; an MVIC color image from 76,000 km, resolution 1.5km/px; and a narrow pass from 34,000 km, resolution 0.17km/px, with a concurrent MVIC image at 0.66km/px.
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